Wednesday, 7 March 2012

There is not need for a debate

A televised debate on the future of Christ Church Cathedral needs to be held, a city councillor says.

Cr Aaron Keown today emailed New Zealand's news networks asking for one to ''host the biggest debate in the earthquake recovery of Christchurch''.

He said the public needed to hear all the facts in an "open and transparent" forum before the "symbol of our city" was lost forever.

and

Keown said last week the cathedral would be demolished "over my dead body".

"I would be in there chaining myself to the building to stop that and I know lots of other volunteers would come in to do that," he said.

Actually no. "We" don't need a debate because it isn't up to "us" whether or not the Cathedral is demolished. It is up to the owners of the building. They have the property rights over the building, which include the right to bring it down, if they so wish, and Mr Keown-or anyone else-gets no say in the matter.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. made it clear as to what ownership means,

But what are the rights of ownership? They are substantially the same as those incident to possession. Within the limits prescribed by policy, the owner is allowed to exercise his natural powers over the subject-matter uninterfered with, and is more or less protected in excluding other people from such interference. The owner is allowed to exclude all, and is accountable to no one. (The Common Law, p193, (1963 edn.))

The Anglican church has these rights and their rightful exercising of them means that the cathedral will be demolished and that decision is to be "uninterfered with" and Mr Keown and his supporters must be excluded "from such interference".

The only group who need to "hear all the facts in an "open and transparent" forum" are the owners and I assume, given that they have made their decision, they already know the facts.

Aaron Keown, or anyone else, doesn't have control rights over the Cathedral and if he wants said rights then he can get them by buying the Cathedral from its current owners. Using HIS money I should add. I'm guessing he could get it cheap right now!

The decision as to the future of the Cathedral belongs to the Anglican church, as they are its owners and only to them. If the church wishes to ask for Mr Keown's opinion that is up to them, but Mr Keown certainly has not right to try to usurp the church's property rights.